The Local Horizon of Ancient Greek Religion
The Local Horizon of Ancient Greek Religion
Which dimensions of the religious experience of the ancient Greeks become tangible only if we foreground its local horizons? This book explores the manifold ways in which Greek religious beliefs and practices are encoded in and communicate with various local environments. Its individual chapters explore 'the local' in its different forms and formulations. Besides the polis perspective, they include numerous other places and locations above and below the polis-level as well as those fully or largely independent of the city-state. Overall, the local emerges as a relational concept that changes together with our understanding of the general or universal forces as they shape ancient Greek religion. The unity and diversity of ancient Greek religion becomes tangible in the manifold ways in which localizing and generalizing forces interact with each other at different times and in different places across the ancient Greek world.
- Illustrates how localism can be used productively in the study of ancient Greek religion
- Shows how the local and the general together and in interaction with each other shaped the religious landscape of the ancient Greeks
- Provides new insights into how religion related to ancient Greek society including and beyond the well-studied polis paradigm
Reviews & endorsements
'… one of the strengths of this impressive volume is its emphasis on the diversity of ancient Greek religious belief, practice, and experience. The volume certainly accomplishes its stated goals, set out in its brief preface, of elevating 'the local' to an ontological domain of meaning, illustrating the various ways in which religion is embedded in environment, and teasing out complex interplay between the local and general spheres. The emergence of 'the local' as a relational concept ensures its wide-ranging utility and establishes it as a productive approach in the study of Greek religion.' Ranjani Atur, Bryn Mawr Classical Review
Product details
No date availableAdobe eBook Reader
9781009301855
0 pages
3 b/w illus. 11 colour illus. 2 maps 1 table
Table of Contents
- 1. Localism and the study of ancient Greek religion. The example of the Divine Persona Julia Kindt
- 2. Refitting the local horizon of ancient Greek religion (including some remarks on the Sanctuary of Poseidon on Kalaureia) Hans Beck
- 3. Mycenaean Greek worship in Minoan territory Susan Lupack
- 4. Hera on Samos: between the global and the local Jan N. Bremmer
- 5. The local dimension of ancient Greek religion: Polytheism and the distribution of votives in the Corinthia Tulsi Parikh
- 6. Demeter Chthonia at Hermione: landscapes and cult Diana Burton
- 7. Local variation in the Thesmophoria festival: a case study of the attic and Sicilian Thesmophoria festivals Katherine R. L. McLardy
- 8. The Lindian Chronicle and local identity Jeremy McInerney
- 9. Shifting identities and defensive localism: conflicts of religious narratives in Post-Synoikism Rhodes Juliane Zachhuber
- 10. Between local and global? Religion in Late-Hellenistic Delos Julietta Steinhauer
- 11. Personal or communal? Social horizons of local Greek religion Irene Polinskaya
- 12. How to write a local history of imperial Greek cults: observations from Pausanias Greta Hawes
- 13. Panhellenic sanctuaries: local and regional perspectives Peter Funke
- Epilogue: a tribute to Potnia of the labyrinth Corinne Bonnet.
